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John Halstead

John is a native of the southern Laurentian bioregion, where he practices an idiosyncratic form of Naturalistic Paganism. He is one of the founders of 350 Indiana-Calumet and has participated in direct action against the fossil fuel industry. John was the principal facilitator of “A Pagan Community Statement on the Environment” (ecopagan.com). John strives to live up to the challenge posed by the Pagan Statement through his writing and activism. Since 2011, John has been writing about religion and life at AllergicPagan.com. He has written for numerous other online platforms, including The Huffington Post, Patheos, GodsandRadicals.org, Witches & Pagans, and GodisChange.org. John is the Editor-at-Large at HumanisticPaganism.com. He also edited the anthology, Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans (2016). John is also a Shaper of the Earthseed community (GodisChange.org).

It’s a problem when we think we have no power in dealing with corporations. That’s what the words “standard in the industry” and “boilerplate” are meant to do. They’re meant to make us feel powerless. But we do have power. We have power when we are informed. We have power when we use our voices, and when we use our feet. We have power when we act together.

While the Pope comes to many right conclusions about anthropogenic climate change and the limits of capitalism, his environmental encyclical is nevertheless plagued by a lingering anthropocentrism which he never manages to root out.